One Downtown Boise businessman says the economic downturn is forcing him to move closer to his customers.
Restaurateur Gino Vuolo said he is moving Gino's Grill from 150 N. 8th St. to the Bridge Tower Business Complex near McMillan and Linder roads in Meridian.
That will bring the restaurant nearer to customers who no longer drive Downtown to eat because of rising gas prices, he said. He plans to keep his Gino's Italian Ristorante at the same Downtown location in the same building as the grill.
"I have a lot of customers out there," Vuolo said. "And they're telling me they don't come Downtown as much anymore."
Vuolo said Downtown's consumer traffic will probably get worse starting Aug. 1 when Capital City Development Corp. boosts the parking fees at its local parking garages from $1.50 to $2.50 an hour. The first hour will still be free.
CCDC Parking and Facilities Director Max Clark said the increase was necessary to cover the cost of major maintenance.
Idaho's jobless rate rose for the fourth consecutive month in June, jumping two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.8 percent. That was the state's highest unemployment level since January 2007, when the rate stood at 4 percent.
The Idaho Department of Labor said there were 11,200 fewer Idahoans working in June than in the same month a year ago. More than 4,000 jobs were lost in the last month.
Most - 9,100 - of the jobs lost in the past year were in the five-county Treasure Valley area, which saw its month-over-month unemployment rate rise four-tenths of a percentage to 4.3 percent.
"That's where most of the jobs are, because that's where most of the people are," said Labor Department spokesman Bob Fick
Economist John Church said the decline was "not a good sign" for Idaho, which historically enjoys its highest employment levels during the summer.
"Construction, hospitality, agriculture, they're all usually up and running," Church said.
Businesses, especially smaller ones, continued to struggle with higher fuel costs and shaky consumer confidence in June. Employers reported 17,500 new hires last month, the lowest total for June in more than a decade.
"Higher fuel prices are squeezing budgets," said Suzanne Schaefer, head of the Idaho chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. "It's costing them (small businesses) more to operate. And with fuel costs up 40 percent, maybe they don't hire that person they need."
Nationwide, the U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent, despite a loss of 62,500 jobs in June.
Analysts said that meant May's unusual half-point leap in the jobless rate wasn't an aberration as first thought.
"We had thought that the rate had temporarily overshot in May based on problems seasonally adjusting the summer inflow of students into the work force," Nigel Gault, the chief U.S. economist for forecaster Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., said in a research note to investors. "But the unemployment rate for young workers was little changed this month, suggesting that they are simply facing a much weaker labor market than in previous years."
Joe Estrella: 377-6465. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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